This video is fantastic. If you were ever wondering how rudimentary and interesting the computer technology used in the Apollo NASA missions was, we have your answer right here. In this film we get to see a modern computer genius interact with one of the guys who worked for IBM and actually designed the computers for the Saturn V, mankind’s greatest hot rod. We were actually blown away from much of the stuff that we heard here. How much hand work went into making the actual computers, and how basic they are.
To see one of the guys who actually designed this stuff tell its story is fantastic. You can hear the pride and age in his voice when he talks about what they did and how they did it. How humans were the computers at that time. How data analysis was about rolling paper out down a hallway and analyzing weird math to see if everything worked right. The idea of monitoring the rocket live was so far afield that the guy kind of laughs it off.
Even cooler is the modern computer guy who is literally speechless at times when he realizes how hardcore these people were and how dedicated to the job they were. These were physical computers with moving parts. We were blown right the heck away.
We stand on the shoulders of giants. All the countless, nameless heros who accomplished so much, amazing.
Saturn V is the age that I grew up in. The Astronauts were the people we looked up to. Based on this video there were many hero\’s that made this happen. Saturn V was an incredible accomplishment!!
Mechanicals for that steering included gimballing cylinders using pressurized fuel from the engine pumps as hydraulic fluid, not a separate conventional system with pump and reservoir. Less parts, less weight, less chance of failure. If one of the five engines shut down the rest were pointed at the vehicle c/g so that stability wasn’t affected.
American moon rockets flew, when the other guy’s did something else.
John Glenn would not fly until ‘ the girl ‘ said the numbers were correct ..
The entire early space program was created with the human mind
Too bad no one listened in 86 when a human said the o-rings were too cold .
My favorite OMFG fact about the Saturn V is about the fuel pumps on the five Rocketdyne F-1 engines in the first stage. The pumps on each F-1 were driven by a gas turbine that was powered by the same kerosene and liquid oxygen that the big engine burned. The roughly refrigerator sized turbine generated 55,000 horsepower; since the Saturn had five F-1s, that means that the Saturn V used an astounding 260,000 HP just to move its own fuel!